Stones Brewery

Stones Brewery (William Stones Ltd) was a brewery founded in 1868 by William Stones in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, and purchased by Bass in 1968 before closing in 1999. Its most famous brand, Stones Bitter, is owned by the Molson Coors Brewing Company who continue to market it.

William Stones had started brewing in 1847 in Sheffield with Joseph Watts. Following Watts' death in 1854 Stones continued brewing by himself. In 1868 he purchased the lease of the Neepsend Brewery, and renamed it the Cannon Brewery, and he continued to brew there until his death in 1894. Stones' success saw him die as one of the richest men in Sheffield, although he lived a modest life. The company was taken over by Bass in 1968, then in 2000 Bass sold its brewing operations to the Belgian brewer Interbrew who were ordered by the Competition Commission to sell the Stones brand. In 2002, the brand was purchased by the American Coors Brewing Company, who became Molson Coors following a merger in 2005.

The brewery is famous nationwide for Stones Bitter, which was brewed at the Cannon Brewery from 1948 and was drunk by Sheffield's steel workers. It was brewed there until the brewery's closure in 1999, although its popularity saw it later additionally brewed elsewhere. Brewery conditioned Stones Bitter (3.7 per cent alcohol by volume) is brewed by Molson Coors at their breweries in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire and Burton upon Trent, and cask conditioned Stones Bitter (4.1 per cent abv) is contract brewed by Everards of Leicester. Stones Bitter was originally available across the south of Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, with distribution extended to the rest of the north of England in 1977, and nationwide from 1979, accompanied by a considerable marketing push. The beer's popularity reached its apex in 1992 when it was the country's highest selling bitter, selling 240 million pints. The beer has been lauded in certain quarters as "one of Sheffield's most famous exports".

Stones notably sponsored the Rugby Football League Championship and its successor the Rugby Super League from 1986 until 1997. A well known series of television advertisements for the brand, starring Tony Barton and Michael Angelis, became the longest running bitter advertisements in the country, running from 1983 until 1991. Since the withdrawal of the majority of marketing support by Bass in 1997 in favour of the Worthington ale brand, the beer has experienced a heavy decline in sales, which are down to less than 10 per cent of their peak, although it remains among the twenty highest selling ale brands in the United Kingdom.

History

Origins (1847–1900)

Stones Brewery has its origins in 1847 when Joseph Watts and William Stones were brewing together at the modestly sized Cannon Brewery on Acorn Street in the Shalesmoor district of Sheffield.^[1] The men also owned a malthouse in the nearby village of Handsworth.^[2] The "Cannon" brewery name may have come from the nearby foundry that cast gun barrels.^[3] Two years after the death of Watts in 1854,^[4] Stones bought out Watts' share of the business from Watts' brother, leaving Stones as the sole partner. In 1868 Stones took over the lease of the Shepherd, Green & Hatfield brewery on Rutland Road in the Neepsend district, which had been founded as the Neepsend Brewery in 1838.^[5] He renamed it the Cannon Brewery after his original premises.^[6] In 1880 Stones built a maltings in Worksop, a town famous for its malthouses.^[7] William Stones became a limited company in 1895,^[8] and had by this time grown to become one of the largest and best regarded business concerns in Sheffield, with a tied estate of 84 pubs primarily in its home city and Chesterfield.^[9][10] Business was extended to Huddersfield in 1896.^[11] Annual shareholder's meetings were held at the Cutlers' Hall in Sheffield.^[12]

Consolidation (1901–1966)

In 1905 net profit was £27,000 and the brewery was producing around 50,000 barrels of beer per year.^[13][14] In February 1912 Stones took over the fourteen tied houses of Chambers’ Brunswick Brewery in Sheffield and shut the brewery down. In 1919 The Crown Inn opposite the brewery was purchased and rebuilt to serve as the brewery tap and flagship public house (in 1992 it became the brewery's visitor's centre). 1931 saw the company report a net profit of £61,767, or £3.3 million in 2010 prices.^[15][16] However by 1953 net profit was modest at £66,778 or £1.5 million in 2010 prices.^[17] Such stagnation was common throughout the British brewing industry in the 1950s, and many medium sized brewers sought to consolidate with other companies in order to survive. In March 1954 William Stones joined the acquisition trail as it partnered with Tennant Brothers to acquire the Sheffield Free Brewery, closing the brewery and dividing the estate between themselves.^[18] In September that same year the company purchased Mappin's Brewery of Rotherham, shutting the brewery down the following year.^[19] The takeover added around 100 public houses to their tied estate, giving them a total of 300. By 1955 profits had more than doubled to £135,276, or almost £3 million in 2010 prices.^[20] In 1956 the company responded to the growing popularity of brewery conditioned ale by introducing Ind Coope and Allsopp's Double Diamond into their tied estate.^[21]

In 1959 William Stones bought Ward & Sons of Swinton, local bottlers of beer and mineral water for £100,000 (£1.8 million in 2010 prices). The Ward bottling plant was superior to Stones' own, and capable of filling and labelling 8000 bottles an hour.^[22] The acquisition allowed Stones to bottle national beers such as Bass and Guinness for itself, rather than relying on contractors.^[23][24] Also in that year a reciprocal deal was reached with Whitbread, whereby William Stones supplied draught bitter to the 33 houses of the former Scarsdale Brewing Company, in return for stocking Whitbread's Mackeson Stout in their own tied estate.^[25][26] In 1960 the company was awarded the rights to bottle the Norwegian Ringnes lager brand for the region.^[27] All bottling had transferred to Swinton by 1961, allowing Stones to close its own bottling plant, giving it room to redevelop its Sheffield site.^[28] In 1962 a deal was reached with United Breweries to sell Carling Black Label lager in Stones tied houses in exchange for supplying Stones products to United's Sheffield area public houses.^[29] In 1965 the company was valued at £5 million, rising to £7.2 million by 1967 (over £100 million in 2010 prices) as takeover rumours mounted.^[30][31] In 1966 William Stones launched its first brewery conditioned beer, Stones Imperial, to great success.^[32][33] That same year the company made a pre-tax profit of £629,000, equivalent to £9 million in 2010.^[16][34]

Multinational ownership (1967–1999)

By 1967 Bass had built up a 14 per cent stake in the company, and in 1968 they purchased William Stones for £9 million (over £120 million in 2010 prices), financing the deal through an exchange of stock.^[31][35] The company had a tied estate of 257 public houses and 70 off-licences, located mainly in the south of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, as well as a substantial free trade business.^[36][37] The takeover was a friendly one and recommended by the William Stones board.^[38] Bass retained production of the popular Stones Bitter, but largely replaced the remaining 20 per cent of Stones' sales with its own nationally available brands, such as Worthington E, and Stones' cider supplier was changed from H P Bulmer to Bass' own Taunton mill.^[39] As a Bass subsidiary, William Stones was given a fair amount of autonomy, although Bass introduced the use of cheaper adjuncts in the brewing of the beer, such as flaked maize.^[40] High gravity brewing was introduced by the 1980s, which saved on production costs and allowed for greater production capacity. The takeover also saw the Swinton bottling plant and the brewery's Worksop maltings closed down.^[7] Although Bass did not automatically close smaller regional breweries as a matter of policy, by 1970 they had already suggested that the Cannon Brewery might be closed.^[41] However the continuing popularity of Stones Bitter, and technical and industrial relations problems at the supposed replacement Runcorn plant in Cheshire saved the brewery from closure.^[42] Despite such threats of closure, the brewery experienced good labour relations throughout the second half of the twentieth century.^[43] Increasing demand for Stones Bitter saw production of the beer extended to the Bass owned Hope & Anchor brewery, Sheffield from the 1970s until its closure in 1992, and at the Tower brewery in Tadcaster from the 1980s onwards.^[44] In the early 1980s it was also produced at Bass' Runcorn brewery for the Northern market outside of Yorkshire, although this was discontinued after drinkers complained of the headaches that the badly produced Runcorn beer gave them.^[45] Brewing of Stones returned to Runcorn in the late 1980s after quality control issues had been resolved, until that brewery's closure in 1991.^[43]

By 1982 16 per cent of Yorkshire's public houses were tied to Stones, with many more throughout the northern Midlands.^[46] In 1996 a deal was reached to supply Stones Bitter as a guest beer to all Hardys & Hansons pubs in the Sheffield and Chesterfield area.^[26] The Cannon Brewery continued to operate until April 1999 when it closed with the loss of 57 jobs, after Bass was unable to find a willing buyer.^[47] Bass blamed the closure on the steep decline in sales of cask conditioned beers (nationally there had been a 14 per cent decline in sales of cask beer over the previous 12 months), which the brewery was geared towards producing.^[48][49] The Campaign for Real Ale blamed the brewery's closure on Bass' failure to promote their cask conditioned products.^[50] As well as Stones Bitter the Cannon brewed the small scale Bass Special, Bass Light and Bass Mild brands from the mid 1990s as declining Stones volumes left the brewery with spare capacity.^[51] Bass Light and Bass Mild had been sold in the Sheffield area as Stones Mild and Stones Dark Mild respectively. Bass moved production of Stones to its Burton upon Trent and Tadcaster breweries. In 2000 Bass sold its brewing interests, including their breweries and the Stones brand to the Belgian brewer Interbrew. Interbrew contracted the production of cask conditioned Stones to Marston's in Burton. Competition concerns forced Interbrew to sell off certain brands in December 2001, including Stones Bitter, which was bought by the American Coors Brewing Company (later Molson Coors). Molson Coors currently produce keg Stones Bitter at their brewery in Tadcaster, and the canned version at their Burton brewery. The cask product was initially contract brewed at the Highgate Brewery in Walsall, West Midlands, before moving to Everards of Leicester in 2005.^[52][53] Sheffield's strong brewing tradition continues with a large number of microbreweries situated in the city.

William Stones

William Stones was born in Sheffield in 1826, the eldest boy of six siblings. By 1870 Stones was living at Lowfield, Sheffield.^[54] Stones purchased a terraced house in 1883, although he had been renting the property for several years prior to this. Stones died aged 68 on 14 November 1894, having devoted his whole life to brewing.^[55] He was a bachelor, and one of the richest men in Sheffield, leaving over £150,000 in his will (over £15 million in 2010 prices).^[9][56][57] He left his wealth to his sister, friends and various charitable concerns.^[58] Stones is said to have earned his success through clever marketing and a consistently good product.^[59] He was also lucky in that Sheffield water was of an exceptionally high standard, with the British Medical Journal asserting in 1857 that: "[t]he taste is agreeable: and few towns have purer or better water than Sheffield."^[60]

The Cannon Brewery

Situated in Neepsend, Shepherd, Green & Hatfield were the first to brew at the site in 1838. At the time it was a respectable residential district, although it was given over to industrial concerns in 1946. The brewery was flooded by the Great Sheffield Flood of 1864. The marketing and sales offices on the brewery site were completed in 1958.^[61] A new brewhouse (the one that currently stands) with an Art Deco interior was operational by 1962, and at the time it was the most up to date in the country.^[62] An on-site public house was opened in the basement of the brewery in 1964, initially named The Underground, but later renamed The Pig and Whistle; it was used by brewery workers and visitors to the brewery.^[63] At its peak the site stretched to around 15 acres in size and the brewery produced 50,000 hectolitres of cask conditioned Stones each year, which is less than many microbreweries today, such as Black Sheep Brewery.^[64] The Head Offices buildings were sold in 1985 to the accountants Wells Richardson. In 1995 the brewery was used as a shooting location for the film When Saturday Comes. After its closure, some of the brewing equipment was sold to the local Wentworth micro brewery.^[65] With the exception of the former Head Office, the site is currently unoccupied and derelict.

Beers

Stones Bitter

Stones Bitter is a bitter beer first brewed in 1948 at the Cannon Brewery. It was designed for the steelworkers of Sheffield's Lower Don Valley. Bass extended its distribution to include the north of England in 1977, before extending distribution nationwide in 1979. Its popularity during the 1970s and 1980s in its heartland saw it desrcibed as "more of a religion than a beer." By 1992 Stones was the UK's highest selling bitter, with 240 million pints sold annually. That same year the ABV of Stones was reduced from 4.1 per cent to 3.9 per cent ABV, and then to 3.7 per cent in 1999. The cask conditioned Stones was restored to 4.1 per cent ABV in 2006. A famous major television campaign ran nationally from 1983 until 1991 with the tagline: "(Wherever you may wander) there's no taste like Stones" and starred Tony Barton and Michael Angelis.^[66] By 1987 it had become the UK's longest running bitter campaign of all time.^[67] Stones also sponsored the Rugby Football League Championship from 1986 to 1995 and its successor the Rugby Super League from 1996–7.^[68][69]

Other beers

Stones Cannon Special, brewed to 1050 original gravity was available on draught into the 1980s.^[70] As with many breweries, occasional special brews were commissioned upon commemorative dates and retirement of long-serving employees. In 1991 a special bottled beer was produced when Sheffield Wednesday reached the finals of the Football League Cup.^[71] 2,000 bottles of Stones Centenary Ale were produced in 1995, celebrating 100 years of Rugby League. This was followed by the 1996 cask conditioned Stones Super League Bitter (4.8 per cent ABV) celebrating Stones' sponsorship of the League, and the 1998 bottled Stones Commemorative Ale which marked the scheduled closure of the brewery.^[71] In summer 2007, Everards brewed a one-off cask conditioned Stones Pure Gold (4.1 per cent ABV) golden ale, and in 2011 four cask conditioned sports themed Stones branded ales were made available throughout the first half of the year, brewed at William Worthington's Brewery in Burton upon Trent.^[72] Stones Strong Ale (9 per cent ABV) was a "birra doppio malto" keg beer brewed for the Italian market. It was discontinued with the closure of the Cannon Brewery.^[73][74]

References

Further reading

• "A Pub On Every Corner", Douglas Lamb. Hallamshire Press, 1996. ISBN 1874718555
• Hawkins, "A History of Bass Charrington"
• The brewing industry 1950–1990: reflective essays, Avis, Anthony (1997)
• Bygone breweries of Sheffield : a summary of the brewing trade in the city 100 years ago, David Parry, 1981